Glory in the Forest
by Lomonaaeren
Summary: HPDM slash, oneshot. Draco is tired, tired of his job and pretty much tired of his life. He does not want to go see whatever mysterious thing Harry has to show him.


**Title**: Glory in the Forest  
**Rating**: PG  
**Word Count**: 3300  
**Challenge: **  
_Recipient: _Catalinacat  
_Keywords_: unique, green, mystifying  
_Dialogue_: "Cross my heart, hope to die."  
**Summary**: Draco is tired—tired of his job, and pretty much tired of life. He does not want to go see whatever mysterious thing Harry wants to show him.  
**Author's Notes**: Technically takes place after the seventh book, but ignores the epilogue. Unbeta-ed due to time issues; any mistakes are mine and mine alone.

**Glory in the Forest**

Draco leaned against the wall outside the door of their flat and allowed himself a moment to just close his eyes and brood. Once again, his side burned with a stitch from too much running and leaping, just to get hold of a petty criminal who would probably be back on the streets within two days at the outside. And the small of his back twinged insistently, thanks to the impact of a curse he was sure hadn't been cast by the criminal's non-existent accomplices, but by one of the Aurors "on his side."

There were days Draco wondered why in the world he had wanted to go into the Ministry at all, let alone become an Auror. Yes, he had wanted to prove himself after the war, show that his ideals _had_ changed and that he _had_ learned his lesson. It was a means of garnering prestige for the Malfoy name again, but it wasn't just that. Draco could have made charitable donations and earned the same acclaim whilst remaining safer. He really had taken the lessons of the war to heart, though, and wanted to show he could do some actual good.

And after five years, three in training and two in the field, the other Aurors still refused to accept him. Draco wasn't sure they ever would.

He opened his eyes, waved his wand, and dismissed several of the wards that crowded the door, then waited in patient silence as several more examined his blood, his magical signature, and his musculature. Two minutes passed before the door clicked open to let him in. Draco didn't mind. Lately, the wards they had mainly set up to prevent rabid Potter-fans from crowding the flat served as a layer of extra protection against all the people who resented Draco.

Not that he wanted to tell Harry that. Harry would be horrified and outraged, and would immediately march down to the Ministry to give everyone involved a piece of his mind—or, worse, would ask Minister Shacklebolt to do so. And then Draco's pride in having resisted the malice of the Aurors in silence would be dented, and the malice itself would redouble.

"Draco?"

Harry's yell came from somewhere deeper inside the flat than the small room at the entrance, probably from the kitchen. Draco gratefully drew in the smells of cooking duck and vegetables, and then began dragging his cloak off, glad for Harry's positioning. That allowed him to hide how much he winced as his back flexed.

"I'm here," he said absently, and hung the cloak on a peg behind him, pausing to watch as the wards carefully settled themselves in a transparent but deadly film over the door. The last of the tightly clenched muscles he had carried home from his job relaxed; the pain from the curse suddenly seemed less.

Harry grunted something, and Draco flopped down on a couch near the door, since no one was near to see him flopping. He thought about dragging his feet up so he could stretch out on his back, but it seemed too much effort. At the moment, removing his dragonhide boots was too much effort. He closed his eyes and listened to the noises of Harry drawing dishes from the cupboards, moving pots and pans about, and sometimes yelping and casting a spell that was probably meant to keep food from burning. Draco vastly preferred these nights to the ones when he had to return home to a cold, dark, empty flat because Harry was on the road with the Chudley Cannons, serving as their reserve Seeker.

Draco smiled a little. _If it had only been up to me, those nights might have gone on forever_. When he'd first realized he was attracted to Harry Potter, he'd contented himself with staring and attending a few extra Cannons games. It had been a dream he accepted as impossible before he even tried to achieve it. Why _should_ it be possible? There was Harry Potter, shining war hero, on one end of the spectrum, and Draco Malfoy, tarnished son of a Death Eater, on the other. In a world where even Draco lay awake at night sometimes, staring at the ceiling, and wondering if he had deserved to survive when so many others had died, people like them didn't come together.

But Harry had noticed his showing up at the games, and confronted him rather insistently. Draco had denied any nefarious intent. And then Harry had raised his eyebrows and asked about a _different_ kind of intent, and Draco hadn't been able to prevent his gaze from dropping to Harry's lips and throat fast enough.

Draco did his share of comforting and cooking and standing up to the press and holding Harry when he woke shouting from nightmares. But Harry was the mover, the agitator, in the relationship in a way Draco wasn't. He had been the one to suggest they start dating, to suggest they move in together, and to show Draco that he wasn't afraid of the public reaction and wouldn't let Draco be afraid of it, either. So the world slowly changed around them, molded into one where people like them could be together, and Draco had watched the change in wonder and fascination. He was more grateful than he could say.

_And, of course, the sex is fantastic_, he thought, and drifted into a daydream of the things Harry had done to him with feathers last night.

Someone tapped him on the knee. Draco shot up, gasping wildly, for a moment thinking it was Albert Crosswood with another of his methods for "testing Draco's reflexes." Instead, Harry stood in front of him, blinking thoughtfully. Then his eyes narrowed, and he reached out, grasped Draco's hand, and hauled him off the couch.

"I knew it," he announced.

"Knew what?" Draco was blinking, trying to clear the gauze of daydreams from his head and remember whether he'd had a conversation with Harry that morning about something he could be referencing now.

"Knew you were still punishing yourself for what happened during the war," Harry said, dragging him towards the front door. "Or letting other people do it. You've been losing weight lately, you haven't slept well, and then you woke up this morning murmuring that something was your fault." He turned around and took Draco's shoulders into his hands, shaking them slightly; Draco had stopped moving, too astonished to say anything. Harry stared deeply into his eyes. His voice sank to a hiss. "When are you going to realize that just because Voldemort used your family's house for a base and just because your father was a Death Eater doesn't make you responsible for every casualty of the war?"

Draco looked away, knowing he could never explain in words why he felt this way. When he had seen how many announcements of funerals crowded the pages of the _Daily Prophet_—and then when he had actually attended one in disguise and seen the mourners weeping unashamedly—a great swell of nameless grief had swept over him. And then his father hadn't even seemed to _care_. He'd sneered when Draco deferentially brought up the idea of contributing to a few of the funds and charities and foundations set up in memory of the dead. It seemed as though, as little as a month after the war, Lucius didn't even remember how much the world had changed.

_Draco_ knew things were different. And because Lucius wouldn't expiate the family's sins, and his mother flinched a little but wouldn't actually do anything, it was up to Draco. Tolerating some sneering was the least he could do.

"It won't bring back the dead, your suffering," Harry whispered, in a voice Draco couldn't ignore but which he desperately wanted to. "It won't help anyone go on with his life. It won't lessen the tensions that still exist between pure-bloods and Muggleborns. You could do more good in the world if you would just _accept_ that you're a good person, and stop living under the crushing weight of this guilt." Draco said nothing, because there was nothing to be said, and Harry ground his teeth together.

"This makes me unhappy," he said. "Draco, do you really believe I would love you if you were still the little creep I knew in school?"

"Because you love me, you're not thinking clearly," Draco muttered, staring down at his folded arms, and avoiding the sight of Harry as much as he could when the other man was standing right in front of him. A new guilt radiated up like black sunbeams from the middle of his chest. He didn't want Harry to be unhappy. But on the other hand, this was the reality they both had to live with. "And maybe I haven't changed all that much."

Harry uttered a noise like a Muggle car trying to start underwater—Draco still wanted to take a shower when he remembered the case that had taught him what that sounded like—and seized his shoulder. "I'll just have to take you to someone whose testimony you _will_ believe," he said. He drew a bottlecap out of his robes, a Portkey, and extended it to Draco, who didn't hold his hand out.

"Leave it be, Harry," Draco said softly. He didn't want to refuse Harry's attentions too pointedly—it _did_ touch him that Harry was going through all this just to soothe Draco's insecurities—but he didn't think this would change anything, either. "Sometimes people don't get the help they deserve."

Harry's eyes softened instead of turning hard and angry the way Draco had expected. He leaned forwards and placed a hand gently on Draco's cheek. Draco blinked and tried to step away, but the touch seemed to have Petrified him.

"I love you," Harry whispered. "And I promise that if this little trip doesn't convince you, I won't bother you about your guilt for at _least_ a month."

Draco smiled in spite of himself. Of course Harry wouldn't promise to leave the subject alone forever. That was what Gryffindors did: pick themselves up after a fall and climb the sliding staircase again.

"You promise?" he said, and reached for the Portkey.

"Cross my heart, hope to die," Harry said, an odd Muggle saying he was fond of for some reason, and then the whirl of colors closed around Draco.

He stumbled as he came out of them, and looked around in some bewilderment. They were standing not in another flat, as he had thought they would be, but near a wall of solid trees. Draco shivered, wishing he had his cloak after all as a chill wind cut past him. It was the middle of April, but still, that wasn't very warm. Harry cast a charm to ease the cold and snatched Draco's wrist, hauling him along.

"We're _not_ going to see Granger?" Draco asked, panting for a moment as he tried to keep pace with Harry. He didn't want to show the pain that flared to life in his side at the swift movements.

Harry stopped long enough to give him an incredulous look. He'd lit his wand with a _Lumos_ now, and the light revealed the shadows under his eyes as well as his expression. Draco winced a little. Harry had lost sleep over his worry. That wasn't what Draco wanted to happen; he just didn't see any way to stop it.

"Of course not," Harry said. "You only seem irritated when you talk to her, not rested, and she won't give up the Muggle psychology tactic, even though we both know that won't work. I wouldn't subject you to that again."

Draco squeezed Harry's wrist. He felt a shiver of warmth that had nothing to do with the charm travel across his shoulders. "All right, then," he said quietly.

Harry grinned at him, an odd flash of teeth in the _Lumos_ charm's green-yellow color, and dragged him on. Draco studied the trees ahead of them. He could make out individual leaves, now, a stronger shade of deep green than any he'd seen around their home lately, and thick, gnarled trunks that spoke to centuries of growth—

He set his heels. Harry, plunging ahead, was abruptly stopped as if by an anchor. He blinked and glanced over his shoulder. "Draco?"

"Tell me that you have not dragged me to the Forbidden Forest," Draco said flatly.

"I prefer not to lie," Harry said.

Draco shook his head. It wasn't as though he were more terrified of the Forbidden Forest than of any other place he had ever been, though he still wouldn't have wanted to venture into it alone. It was that he literally couldn't comprehend why Harry might have brought him here.

Harry stepped closer to him again, this time with a slight, mystifying half-smile on his face that Draco didn't remember seeing before. His hand rested on Draco's chest for a moment, above his heart, and his eyes closed as if he were listening to a distant sound. "I promise it will be all right," he whispered. "Hagrid showed me someone when I came to visit him last weekend who I'd like you to meet. Please?"

And his eyes flared open, and in the light of the _Lumos_ charm they were the eyes of a wild thing, a wolf or a great cat, intensely green.

Draco swallowed, and put out his hand again without speaking. Harry took it and drew him on. Draco found he couldn't take his eyes off Harry's smile as they walked.

He would just have to trust to the man he loved not to let him stumble.

The Forest closed in. It was less terrifying than Draco remembered, but wilder and more incomprehensible. Squeaks and wails and soft hoots emerged from the shadows around him, and he did not know what had made these noises, could not even _imagine_ what had made them. Thoughts of danger rose up and were defeated by the half-glimpses of branches, the sketch of shadows, or a softly leaping shape. The scents of mold and moss mingled in his nose. Draco shivered. For the first time, he thought he knew what brown smelled like.

And then Harry held up a hand. Draco rocked lightly on the balls of his feet as he halted, oddly aware of the tremors running through his body from the unexpected stop. He watched as Harry crept forwards, ducked around two conjoined trees, shoved aside a pine branch, and paused for a moment, as if the sight that greeted his eyes was not the one he had expected. Then he motioned Draco to come on without glancing over his shoulder.

Draco stepped up beside him.

And stared.

A moment later, he choked, tears clouding his eyes and rising in his throat.

In the glade formed by the eaves of six gathered pines stood two unicorns. Harry didn't put his lit wand into the clearing; Draco didn't need it to see them. The unicorns shone with a soft, and softly moving, radiance of their own, like the moon shining through a haze of snow. The larger one was the pure white of an adult, neck curved like a swan's, horn a dazzling spear of light that made Draco's heart hurt when he looked at it. It moved a step forwards, and Draco watched the golden hooves appear and then vanish beneath the grass again, graceful as dolphins diving in and out of the sea.

The smaller unicorn was a silver color unique in Draco's experience, except for a very faint memory of his father's eyes when Draco was two years old and had done his first accidental magic. Then, Lucius had let his gaze soften; then, he had looked human. Or so Draco thought. He had carried the memory with him like a fragile cloth for years, barely ever glancing at it so that it wouldn't crumble into fibers of fancy and pretense.

But this unicorn was that color, and by that Draco knew it was a young one, perhaps two years old. It had no horn. It was dancing around the older unicorn as if there were nothing but joy in the world, now on four legs, now on two, mane and tail gliding in and out through its movements like some dream of silk.

Draco shivered. He could feel his preoccupation with his own thoughts melting from him. It would return when they left the Forest, of course, but—

Then, incredulous, he saw Harry stepping through the branches into the glade. And he pulled Draco with him. Draco let it happen, too stunned to stop in time.

The larger unicorn lifted its head and stared at them. The young one put its hooves on the ground and cocked its head like a kitten. Draco braced himself for the moment when they would take flight, wondering why in the world Harry had wanted to disrupt their tranquility. He and Harry might have watched them at least a few moments longer if they'd remained hidden.

Then the white unicorn came two steps forwards, its movements making a soft _hush-hush_ sound the way owl wings might if they could be heard. Draco shivered again, certain for a moment that that graceful head would bow, the great horn run him through. Unicorns were the purest creatures in the world; they disdained the touch of evil—

The horn came to rest on his shoulder.

Draco, feeling as if he stood on a cliff just above a foam-cresting wave, stared along the horn, into the unicorn's smoke-colored eyes. They drew him deep and held him there, in a searching depth he could not understand. He had no choice but to stand still and let it do whatever it wanted with him.

The unicorn snorted, a half-complete flute note, and moved a few steps nearer. And then its—_her_, Draco suddenly felt very certain, noticing the lack of a beard—muzzle rubbed against his chin.

His breath frozen in his lungs, Draco lifted his hand. The unicorn didn't start or flinch away, just watched him with enormous eyes. And then he was touching her fur, solidified starlight, cool and soft and indescribable.

The unicorn's eyes continued to hold his in a steady gaze. Draco floated in a sea of compassion that broke its boundaries and passed into other emotions he had no name for, made him _feel_ things he had no name for. His head and his mouth hurt with weeping, and he knew tears were sliding down his cheeks. Unchecked, unheeded. They had to be.

He never knew what made the unicorn turn away from him, brushing the horn gently against his throat on the way; perhaps she simply knew he knew himself forgiven. She tossed her head up, whickered to the young unicorn, and then leaped. They both seemed to dissolve into mist and moonlight. In moments, they were gone.

Draco fell to his knees, his shaking hands over his face. His shoulders shook. He was scooped-out, cleansed, purified—

_Shriven._

Harry knelt down next to him and put an arm around his waist, not saying anything. Draco turned and held him in the same silence.

Young unicorns would more freely approach men. If the silver yearling had come to him, Draco might still have doubted. But an adult had done so, without hesitation, and how could any darkness of soul survive the stare of those eyes?

"Do you see?" Harry whispered back. "I'm sorry for not warning you, but this was the only thing I could think of that might break the grip that guilt on you—"

Draco kissed him fiercely, stopping his words. They knelt there, with Draco feeling, as if for the first time, Harry's tongue brushing against his, Harry's fingers working softly and persistently through his hair.

This night would not last forever. The guilt would probably come back. The nightmares certainly would, and the assaults and taunts from the other Aurors.

But now Draco had a beacon to light against the darkness.

_No_, he thought, as he drew back and met Harry's gaze, gentle, peaceful, loving. _I have two_.


End file.
